Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
July 22, 2019
Hello All – Will the low-intensity war between the United States and Iran soon burst into flames? As the economic sanctions continue to hurt Iran's economy, Iran has been threatening oil shipments passing through the Straits of Hormuz, the narrow/critical shipping lane off the coast of Iran. Iran claims the United States is conducting "economic terrorism" against Iran, and refuses to negotiate with terrorists (i.e. the USA). Also this week the Trump people are sending US troops to Saudi Arabia, "in case"; and Iran has arrested 17 of its citizens and charged them with being CIA-trained spies. And much more, all of which can be reviewed in a useful segment from today's Democracy Now! The question confronting us now is whether Trump and his War Team are seeking to create events that will accidently-on-purpose spark a hot war in the Gulf of Hormuz; or do they want only to appear warlike – as Noam Chomsky suggests below – as part of their campaign of confusion and distraction leading up to the 2020 presidential election?
An example of how things can spin out of control is the sudden involvement of the UK in all this. As a useful article in Saturday's Guardian [UK] relates the story, it appears the Trump's uber hawk John Bolton instigated the UK's seizure of an Iranian tanker ship in the Mediterranean, and now Iran has retaliated by "detaining for inspection" a British tanker off the coast of Iran. As the Guardian reports, "The Bolton gambit succeeded. Despite its misgivings, Britain has been co-opted on to the front line of Washington's confrontation with Iran. The process of polarisation, on both sides, is accelerating. The nuclear deal is closer to total collapse. And by threatening Iran with "serious consequences", without knowing what that may entail, Britain blindly dances to the beat of Bolton's war drums." (And all this while the UK is choosing a new Prime Minister Wednesday.) This is way escalation works; and even if the Trump people think they are only pretending to threaten war, the chances of escalation into a hot war are very high.
It is thus significant that the House of Representatives passed this week legislation that would prohibit a military strike against Iran without congressional approval. By a vote of 251 to 170, with 27 Republicans joining all but 7 Democrats, laid down a significant challenge to President Trump. The Democratic leaders of this effort, Representative Ro Khanna of California, stated, the vote was a "clear statement from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle that this country is tired of endless wars, that we do not want another war in the Middle East." Both of Westchester's representatives, Elliot Engel and Nita Lowey, voted in favor of the Resolution. (For details, go here.)
News Notes
I have seen no public explanation or analysis of "The Great Disappearing ICE Raid" that was scheduled ten days ago and never happened. Still, the daily ICE terror grinds on. But the widespread efforts to promote awareness about political and civil rights in the face of an ICE raid seem to have been successful. Read "ICE continues to fail amid ongoing Brooklyn raids," by Rose Adams in the Brooklyn Paper.
Made by a Syrian woman who lived in Aleppo during five years of war, the documentary film "For Same" opens Friday at the Quad Cinema in NYC. When protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad first began in 2011, Waad al-Kateab was a young economics student who began filming on a cellphone. For five years, she documented her own life and the lives of those around her as the Assad regime intensified its brutal response to the uprising. She eventually gathered hundreds of hours of footage. Check out the interview with the film's director and some extended clips from the film in this very interesting segment from Democracy Now!
The Israeli campaign against the BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement has led to legislation or executive pronouncements in 27 US states (inc. NY) and now legislation in the House of Representatives (HRes. 246). In general, the laws of resolutions state (falsely) that the BDS movement is motivated and guided by anti-Semitism. Last week Rep. Ilhan Omar (and several co-sponsors) filed proposed legislation to counter the congressional BDS resolution (which has 344 Reps. In the HofR). Rep. Omar's legislation affirms that boycotts are both constitutionally sanctioned and as American as apple pie (think table grapes or South Africa). For an informative look at how the anti-BDS machine works at the state and local level, read "New Jersey lawmakers are trying to amend the state's discrimination laws to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism" by Michael Arria, Mondoweiss [July 19, 2019] [Link]. For an good essay on why criticism of Israel is not in itself anti-Semitic, read "Anti-Zionism Isn't the Same as Anti-Semitism" by Michelle Goldberg, New York Times [Link].
On Wednesday, Robert Mueller is scheduled to testify at the House of Representatives about Russiagate. One mainstream media thread is that the Democrats are hoping that Mueller will reveal bombshell information that will vindicate the Democrats' claim that Trump won the 2016 presidential election with Russian help. Analyses casting doubt on this core Democrat claim have been linked in many previous editions of this Newsletter. A federal court ruling published on July 1st has now added weight to these doubts. One of the most vigorous Doubters in the Russiagate drama has been Ray McGovern of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). In advance of Wednesday's congressional hearings, I encourage you to read his latest round-up, "Making the Worst Case Appear the Better," from Consortium News [July 20, 2019] [Link]. The Nation's Stephen Cohen, an emeritus professor of Russian history, has also been following the Russiagate imbroglio closely. Recommended is his most recent assessment: "Who's Afraid of William Barr?" [Link].
Knee-jerk war supporters sooner or later bring out the claim that we should support whatever war they are talking about because we must "support the troops." And conversely, opposition to any particular war is an insult to the troops fighting it. Some recent polling provides a reality check on this pseudo-patriotism, as a majority of veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and the intervention against ISIL in Syria and Iraq said that these wars "were not worth it." In fact, their level of opposition to the wars was quite similar to that reported by US civilians. For more details, go here.
Finally, it is with great sadness that I report that Frank Ackerman died last week. In 1974 Frank was a founder and for many years the editor of the popular economics magazine Dollars and Sense. This was one of many attempts by young, radical academics to turn their skills to helping popular movements, but Dollars and Sense was one of the best. In his later work Frank published such titles as "Reaganomics," "Hazardous to our Wealth," and "Worst Case Economics." His most recent work focused on energy and climate issues.
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Sunday, August 4th – Please join us at our next CFOW monthly meeting. We meet at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9. As August 4th is the anniversary of the "Tonkin Gulf Incident," and thus one of the milestones of the Vietnam War, we'll discuss that, along with reviewing our work of the past month and making plans for next month.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or climate change, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. We (usually) meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. The next CFOW monthly meeting will be on Sunday, August 4th, at 7 PM, at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs. And if you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. As always, we have some excellent "Featured Essays," I also highly recommend essays by Noam Chomsky, Gary Sick, and Gareth Porter on the chances of a hot war against Iran; several essays about the uprising of a million Puerto Ricans against their corrupt governor; an insightful essay by Richard Falk about the role of law (and lawlessness) in the Israeli/Palestinian struggle; and – on the occasion of its ceasing publication – a fair-and-balanced history of the disruptive impact of Mad Magazine.
Rewards!
The Newsletter's Rewards offer stalwart readers an oasis of sanity, before plunging into the quagmire of this week's news and analysis. As this is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Mission and the moon landing, first up is Gil Scott-Heron's official Apollo recording, "Whitey On The Moon." And while we're on his site, let's listen (again) to one of my favorites, "Work for Peace." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
In Patriarchy No One Can Hear You Scream: Jeffrey Epstein and the Silencing Machine
By Rebecca Solnit, Literary Hub [July 10, 2019]
---- One of my favorite books when I was young was T. H. White's The Once and Future King, and one of its central themes is the attempt of King Arthur to replace an ethos of "might is right" with something closer to justice. Justice means everyone is equal under the law—and equality means both that everyone has equal value under the law and that everyone is subject to the law. That's been a foundational concept for the United States, but might is right has never ceased to be how things actually work at least some of the time. In White's novel, might means in part the capacity for physical violence on the part of individual warriors, armies, tribes, and kingdoms, but the ability of individuals (and corporations and nations) to commit that violence with impunity is another kind of might that matters now. The great work of investigative journalists in recent years has let us see might, naked and corrupt, doing its best to trample, silence, discredit the less powerful and their rights and with it the idea of right as an ethic independent of power. That these men actually run the media, the government, the financial system says everything about what kind of systems they are. Those systems have toiled to protect them, over and over. Indeed, power is not vested in them but in the individuals and institutions all around them. This makes it essential to look past individual perpetrators to the systems that allow them to commit crimes with impunity. [Read More]
"The Task Ahead Is Enormous, and There Is Not Much Time"
An interview with Noam Chomsky, Jacobin [July 2019]
---- Estimates from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) suggest that, if emissions remain unchanged, by 2100 sea levels could rise by more than eight feet. This would irreversibly affect many of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people. Do you think there's a chance we may avoid this?
---- NC -- If anything like that happens, the calamity will be on a scale that is almost imponderable, most severe as you say for the poorest and most vulnerable, but awful enough for the rest of society as well. And it is not the most threatening current projection. We are approaching ominously close to the level of global warming 125,000 years ago when sea levels were 6–9 meters higher than today, and the rapid melting of Antarctic sea ice threatens to narrow the gap, possibly by nonlinear acceleration, some recent studies suggest. Is there a chance to avoid such catastrophes? No doubt. There are well-worked out and sound proposals; economist Robert Pollin's work on a Green New Deal is the best I know. But the task ahead is enormous, and there is not much time. The challenge would be great even if states were committed to overcoming it. Some are. But it is impossible to overlook the fact that the most powerful state in human history is under the leadership of what can only be accurately described as a gang of arch-criminals who are dedicated to racing to the cliff with abandon. [Read More]
(Video) In 2003, This U.K. Whistleblower Almost Stopped the Iraq Invasion. A New Film Tells Her Story
From Democracy Now! [July 19, 2019]
---- In 2003, Katharine Gun, a young specialist working for Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, exposed a highly confidential memo that revealed the United States' collaboration with Britain in collecting sensitive information on United Nations Security Council members in order to pressure them into supporting the Iraq invasion. Gun leaked the memo to the press, setting off a chain of events that jeopardized her freedom and safety, but also opened the door to putting the entire legality of the Iraq invasion on trial.
Acclaimed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg described Gun's action as "the most important and courageous leak I have ever seen." Gun's incredible story is depicted in the new film "Official Secrets," which premieres in the U.S. August 30. We speak with Katharine Gun; the British journalists who reported on Gun's revelations in The Observer newspaper, Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy; and Gavin Hood, director of "Official Secrets [See the Program] And for Part 2 of this interview with Katherine Gun, go here.
We Need a New Manhattan Project to Combat Climate Change
By Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch [July 18, 2019]
---- I find myself looking at a world that, had you described it to me in the worst moments of the Vietnam War years when I was regularly in the streets protesting, I would never have believed possible. I probably would have thought you stark raving mad. … In sum, I would have been amazed at the way, whatever the subject, Americans had essentially been demobilized (or perhaps demobilized themselves) in the 21st century, somehow convinced that there was nothing to be done that would change anything. There was no antiwar movement in the streets, unions had been largely defanged, and even the supposed "fascist" in the White House would have no interest in launching a true movement of his own. If anything, his much-discussed "base" would actually be a set of "fans" wearing red MAGA hats and waiting to fill stadiums for the Trump Show, the same way you'd wait for a program to come on TV. … And none of this would have staggered me faintly as much as one thing I haven't even mentioned yet. Had I been told then that, by this century, there would be a striking scientific consensus on how the burning of fossil fuels was heating and changing the planet, almost certainly creating the basis for a future civilizational crisis, what would I have expected? Had I been told that I lived in the country historically most responsible for putting those carbon emissions into the atmosphere and warming the planet egregiously, how would I have reacted? Had I been informed that, facing a crisis of an order never before imagined (except perhaps in religious apocalyptic thinking), humanity would largely demobilize itself, what would I have said? [Read More] And for more fanning of the flames of discontent, read "To Fight Trump, Take to the Streets!" by Katha Pollitt, The Nation [July 15, 2019] [Link]
The Reactionary Rebellion [Europe]
By Walter Baier, Red Pepper [July 11, 2019]
---- The experiences in Hungary, Poland, Austria and elsewhere make clear the anti-democratic character of Europe's new right-wing extremist parties, which, once in government, infiltrate the state apparatus in order to take precautions against their being deprived of power again. Is it possible, then, to speak, in a scientific sense, of a fascist danger in Europe? Over the past year, the biotope of modernised, right-wing extremist parties in Europe has spread virally. We are not speaking about violent, militant fringe groups but rather about parties who have found their way to the commanding heights of states across the continent. Should we use the term 'fascism' to label these parties, well-aware of the strong historical associations this term evokes? We might also ask, from the point-of-view of tactics, whether it makes sense to emphasize and give prominence to the objectively existing continuity between present‑day right-wing extremist parties and historical fascism. Is there a difference between the historical far right in Europe and what the mainstream of empirical political science today calls 'right‑wing populism'? [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
The Wheels Are Coming Off
By Gary Sick, LobeLog [July 19, 2019]
----A series of events, some of which got little attention in the media, suggest that the wheels may be coming off the Trump administration's Middle East policy. Admittedly, that policy is not very well articulated, and many knowledgeable observers would regard it as dysfunctional. Yet even a random collection of actions constitute a policy, so let me offer my own interpretation of where we are. The essential core of the Trump Middle East policy is the alliance with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The effort to bring the two Arab states into close association with Israel was the most innovative element of this policy, as was the blatantly transactional nature of the relationship with the two wealthy Arab states. President Trump defined it quite simply as "Just take the money." My understanding of the importance of this alliance was to promote and sustain the Deal of the Century, which was to resolve the Israel-Palestinian dispute once and for all. Israel was obviously an essential player in this process, but Arab cover and money was required to lend the process legitimacy and agency. The one common interest that tied these parties together was fear and hatred of Iran.. [Read More]
The War Against Iran
Noam Chomsky: Trump Is Trying to Exploit Tension With Iran for 2020
Interviewed by David Barsamian, Truthout [July 18, 2019]
---- My speculation is that a lot of the fist-waving at the moment is probably for two reasons: one, to try to keep Iran off balance and intimidated, and also to intimidate others so that they don't try to interfere with U.S. sanctions; but I think it's largely domestic. If the Trump strategists are thinking clearly — and I assume they are — the best way to approach the 2020 election is to concoct major threats all over: immigrants from Central America coming here to commit genocide against white Americans, Iran about to conquer the world, China doing this and that. But we will be saved by our bold leader with the orange hair, the one person who is capable of defending us from all of these terrible threats, not like these women who "won't know how to do anything," or "sleepy" Joe or "crazy" Bernie. That's the best way to move into an election. That means maintaining tensions, but not intending to actually go to war. [Read More]
How Corporate Media Are Fueling a New Iran Nuclear Crisis
By Gareth Porter, Antiwar.com [July 19, 2019]
---- The U.S. news media's coverage of the Iran nuclear issue has been woefully off-kilter for many years. Now, however, those same outlets are contributing to the serious crisis building between Washington and Tehran. Iran has responded to Trump's withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal by resuming the stockpiling of low enriched uranium, removing the cap on the level of uranium enrichment and resuming work at the Arak nuclear reactor, while making it very clear that those steps would be immediately reversed if the United States agreed to full compliance. … The new nuclear crisis with Iran is being stoked by the corporate media's collective failure to convey the reality of the situation to the public. Thus, the Trump administration and the media have, to date, successfully made the Iranian government the focus of scrutiny that the public would be well-served to turn on them as well. [Read More]
America's Indefensible Defense Budget
By Jessica T. Mathews, New York Review of Books [July 18, 2019 Issue]
---- The sheer size of the military establishment and the habit of equating spending on it with patriotism make both sound management and serious oversight of defense expenditures rare. As a democracy, we are on an unusual and risky path. For several decades, we have maintained an extraordinarily high level of defense spending with the support of both political parties and virtually all of the public. The annual debate about the next year's military spending, underway now on Capitol Hill, no longer probes where real cuts might be made (as opposed to cuts in previously planned growth) but only asks how big the increase should be…. The political momentum that drives this annual increase, disconnected from hard thought about America's responsibilities in a transformed world, threatens to become—or may have already become—unstoppable. The consequences are huge. … By this measure, defense spending looks anything but easily affordable. Nor, on its projected path of continuing growth, does it look sustainable. What would finally be too much? Two-thirds of the total? Seventy percent? [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
We Are Here Because You Were There
By H. Patricia Hynes, The Berkshire Eagle [July 21, 2019]
---- Why would so many Guatemalans make the arduous journey to the US-Mexican border seeking refuge, knowing the hatred heaped on them by the Trump Administration? A short list of our long history of corporate exploitation and military aggression in that country might explain. [And similar stories about Honduras and El Salvador] Since 1890, the United States has intervened in Latin American elections, civil wars and revolutions at least 56 times according to historian and author Mark Becker, to bolster US corporations' interests and eliminate democratically elected governments and leftist movements. In synch with this historical legacy, the Trump administration has enacted crippling economic sanctions, supported an attempted coup and threatened military action against the socialist government in Venezuela. (Imagine the same being done to us during our revolution for independence from Britain, our civil war, and any of our presidential elections). Adding fuel to his scorched earth policy, Trump's proposed 2020 budget increases the military budget by 5% and decreases the State Department by 31% – a signal of our increasingly belligerent, non-negotiating role in the world. Perhaps the only way to attract the well financed, educated and presumably white immigrants Trump seeks is to declare war on a Nordic country, hoping they will come because we are there. [Read More] And for one of the reasons why people in Central America are leaving home, watch the (Video), "How the Climate Crisis Is Pushing Central Americans Out of Their Homes Toward the U.S" from Democracy Now! [July 10, 2019] [Link].
---- Why would so many Guatemalans make the arduous journey to the US-Mexican border seeking refuge, knowing the hatred heaped on them by the Trump Administration? A short list of our long history of corporate exploitation and military aggression in that country might explain. [And similar stories about Honduras and El Salvador] Since 1890, the United States has intervened in Latin American elections, civil wars and revolutions at least 56 times according to historian and author Mark Becker, to bolster US corporations' interests and eliminate democratically elected governments and leftist movements. In synch with this historical legacy, the Trump administration has enacted crippling economic sanctions, supported an attempted coup and threatened military action against the socialist government in Venezuela. (Imagine the same being done to us during our revolution for independence from Britain, our civil war, and any of our presidential elections). Adding fuel to his scorched earth policy, Trump's proposed 2020 budget increases the military budget by 5% and decreases the State Department by 31% – a signal of our increasingly belligerent, non-negotiating role in the world. Perhaps the only way to attract the well financed, educated and presumably white immigrants Trump seeks is to declare war on a Nordic country, hoping they will come because we are there. [Read More] And for one of the reasons why people in Central America are leaving home, watch the (Video), "How the Climate Crisis Is Pushing Central Americans Out of Their Homes Toward the U.S" from Democracy Now! [July 10, 2019] [Link].
Why Half a Million Puerto Ricans Are Protesting in the Streets
By Ed Morales, The Nation [July 20, 2019]
---- This week has been unlike any other in Puerto Rican history. An estimated 500,000 demonstrators filled Old San Juan's cobblestone streets on Wednesday to demand the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. He has lost public confidence because of mounting scandals in his government and damning revelations from a leaked trove of private chats, published on July 13 by the island's Center for Investigative Journalism. The staggering diversity of the demonstrators—straddling age groups, political orientations, and social class—has elicited fresh declarations of the slogan "Puerto Rico se levanta" ("Puerto Rico is waking up"). [Read More]
For more on the uprising in Puerto Rico РThe New York Times was carrying live updates this afternoon; try this link. Also check out Democracy Now! tomorrow morning (and it's archived). For some background, read "Puerto Ricans in Protests Say They've Had Enough," by Patricia Mazzei and Frances Robles, New York Times [July 18, 2019] [Link] and "The Anti-Corruption Code for the New Puerto Rico," by Jos̩ Atiles-Osoria, NACLA [May 7, 2019] [Link]. For more background, NACLA (originally the "North American Congress for Latin America") has many good articles here.
(Video) Anti-Racist Historian: Attacks on Rep. Omar Rooted in Belief "America Is for White People"
From Democracy Now! [July 19, 2019]
---- On Thursday, President Trump attempted to distance himself from the racist chant of "send her back" about Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar at a Trump campaign rally Wednesday in North Carolina. The chants rang across the rally in response to Trump's own verbal attack against the congresswoman. He did nothing to intervene. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives narrowly passed a resolution condemning Trump's racist remarks against Congressmembers Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. We speak with Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. [See the Program] The New York Times' columnist Michelle Goldberg addresses this Trump ploy in "Defenders of a Racist President Use Jews as Human Shields," [July 19, 2019] [Link].
The BS about Medicare-for-All Has to Stop!
By Dave Lindorff, ZNet [July 20, 2019]
---- First, we need an honest debate about Medicare-for-All — not one that hides the issue behind false warnings about "increased middle-class taxes" to fund it. Everyone will save money under Medicare-for-All, and we will have a far, far healthier population to show for it. Even Sanders himself has done a poor job of making this point in his campaigning. Why doesn't he just say it: Americans will be financially, and medically, better off if they paid a bit more in taxes to obtain full coverage under Medicare for All and eliminated the premiums they and their employer now pay increasingly costly and less adequate private insurance coverage. The clear advantage of government-provided over privately funded health care is why every other developed nation in the world, and many less developed ones, has some form of nationally-funded health care system that treats health care as a right, why every one of those countries has spends less total money as both a share of GDP and national budget, and on a per-capita basis than we do in the US, and yet, in all developed country cases and in many less developed countries, also have better health statistics (life expectancy, infant mortality rates, incidence of diabetes and untreated high blood pressure, etc.). [Read More]
---- First, we need an honest debate about Medicare-for-All — not one that hides the issue behind false warnings about "increased middle-class taxes" to fund it. Everyone will save money under Medicare-for-All, and we will have a far, far healthier population to show for it. Even Sanders himself has done a poor job of making this point in his campaigning. Why doesn't he just say it: Americans will be financially, and medically, better off if they paid a bit more in taxes to obtain full coverage under Medicare for All and eliminated the premiums they and their employer now pay increasingly costly and less adequate private insurance coverage. The clear advantage of government-provided over privately funded health care is why every other developed nation in the world, and many less developed ones, has some form of nationally-funded health care system that treats health care as a right, why every one of those countries has spends less total money as both a share of GDP and national budget, and on a per-capita basis than we do in the US, and yet, in all developed country cases and in many less developed countries, also have better health statistics (life expectancy, infant mortality rates, incidence of diabetes and untreated high blood pressure, etc.). [Read More]
Only Washington Can Solve the Nation's Housing Crisis
By Lizabeth Cohen, The New York Times [July 10, 2019]
---- In recent months America's affordable housing crisis, a long-simmering issue for people of low and moderate incomes, has burst onto the front page. Rents are rising much faster than income, while the median home price in some 200 cities is $1 million. After a decade of decline, the number of homeless Americans is ticking back up.The private market is clearly failing. Although many city and state governments are motivated to take action, they have limited tools at their disposal, and few of them equal to the task. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, at least under its current leadership, is hardly stepping up. Indeed the very idea of a federal commitment to affordable housing seems unrealistic today. And yet not long ago, America made just such a promise: the Housing Act of 1949, which, in the optimism of the immediate postwar moment, vowed to provide "a decent home and a suitable living condition for every American family." We need that same bold national vision today. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
The force of law vs. the law of force: a review of Noura Erakat's 'Justice for Some'
By Richard Falk, Mondoweiss [July 16, 2019]
---- It is difficult to convey Erakat's jurisprudential originality without extensive discussion, but I will try. Much springs from her bold assertion "I argue that law is politics." (4) By this she means, put crudely, 'the force of law' depends on 'the law of force,' that is legal rights without the capability to implement the law to some degree is without effect or its insidious effect is to give legal cover to inhumane behavior. Or as Erakat puts it metaphorically, politics provides the wind that a sail needs for the boat to move forward. At the same time Erakat when discussing Palestinian rights and tactics is insistent that the advocacy of 'force' does not imply a reliance on or a call for violence. Her tactical affirmation of nonviolence becomes explicit when she discusses approvingly the political relevance of the BDS campaign as well as in her endorsement of various efforts to discredit Israel at the United Nations and elsewhere. … Erakat's undertaking is less concerned with understanding the way the world is, than how it ought to be, governed, and how law and lawyering can (on cannot) make this happen. In this sense, the defining spirit of Noura Erakat's book calls to mind that famous remark of Karl Marx: "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it." [Read More]
Israel and the End of Palestinian Childhood
By Nabil Al-Sahli, Middle East Monitor [July 17, 2019]
---- The Israeli occupation authorities have transformed the images of joy, play and education that should be the norm for Palestinian children into a shocking number of violations committed by the army against them in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Around 1.3 million Palestinian children in the West Bank are affected daily by Israel's policy of arrest and detention, as well as attacks by gunfire, beatings and illegal settlers. Another 1 million children in Gaza are considered to be the most affected by the restrictions imposed by the occupation. This includes the siege, aggression and multiple military offensives. Children under the age of 15 make up 42 per cent of the entire population in the Gaza Strip; Israel has basically assassinated their childhood. [Read More] The Israel assault on Palestinian children has become entwined in US congressional politics. Read "A Pro-Israel Democrat Withdrew Her Support for a Bill Supporting Palestinian Rights. She Now Claims Her Name Was Added by Accident," by Alex Kane and Ryan Grim, The Intercept [July 19, 2019] [Link]
OUR HISTORY
'Mad' Magazine Told the Truth About War, Advertising, and the Media
By Jeet Heer, The Nation [July 8, 2019]
---- Born in the troubled era of McCarthyism, Mad is dying in another squalid political epoch. Mad was arguably America's greatest and most influential satirical magazine, a strange claim to make of a publication that was mostly read throughout its existence by children and teenagers, but still justifiable.
Mad was often rude, tasteless, and childish—which made it all the more potent as a tributary of youth culture. The kids who read Mad learned from it to distrust authority, whether in the form of politicians, advertisers or media figures. That was a lesson that successive generations took to heart. Without Mad, it's impossible to imagine underground comics, National Lampoon, Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, The Daily Show, or Stephen Colbert. In the historical sweep of American culture, Mad is the crucial link between the anarchic humor of the Marx Brothers and the counterculture that emerged in the 1960s.
